Flexo,Where did you ever get the notion that the Earth is oblong??Your spatial awareness is just as suspect as your knowledge of employment contracts at airports around Europe.I suppose, if we are prepared to treat you as an " eccentric old bodger " we can get some level of entertainment from your postings. Education, NO, but frivolous entertainment, possibly.

Richard,You and I ( and the majority of the educated world ) are satisfied that the Earth is, indeed, a sphere that has been slightly flattened. In other words an oblate spheroid.The word "oblong " is more commonly used to describe a planar shape (i.e. 2 dimensional) whether straight-sided or rounded.

And now we have been informed that Flexo is the possessor of an academic degree....although I don't understand why this makes him such an authority on Ryanair.

gus wrote:Richard,You and I ( and the majority of the educated world ) are satisfied that the Earth is, indeed, a sphere that has been slightly flattened. In other words an oblate spheroid.The word "oblong " is more commonly used to describe a planar shape (i.e. 2 dimensional) whether straight-sided or rounded.

It was a response to why you cannot make a simple transference of spherical coordinates to calculate the exact antipode.

And now we have been informed that Flexo is the possessor of an academic degree....although I don't understand why this makes him such an authority on Ryanair.

It doesn't either, but what we see here is yet another straw man argument. You seems like a person that operates out of the black book of Socrates, which are primarily being done by trolls in troll factories in Russia, the alt right and some corporations like Ryanair.

I do not feel qualified to make the judgment but we find some here i am sure.We could ask Socrates but i am thinking Pele be better.When we do find you guilty i will push you off the edge of the flat world.

When I was a kid, I wondered why the planets were more or less spheres, and not other shapes.

Then I did O level physics and learnt that it's all to do with surface tension and the forces between molecules. A sphere has the smallest surface area for a given quantity of material. Same reason that raindrops are spheres. I think the flattening effect is caused by the rotation setting up centrifugal ( or centripetal?) forces.

Incidently the phrase " you can' get a quart into a pint pot" can be disproved using surface tension.

You "pot', can be a large sheet of metal with a small lip, which has a volume of a pint. You then carefully drip water on to it. The pot will fill and when it gets to the top of the lip the surface will go higher and be held in place by the surface tension and the curved meniscus around the edge. You will be able to add a least another pint.

Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary has denied the airline has changed its seating policy following claims people are being separated on flights.

The budget airline has come under fire for allegedly splitting up passengers who are travelling together if they do not pay extra to select their seat.

Mr O'Leary went on the offensive yesterday as he spoke on, He denied there was any recent change of policy or in the seat allocation algorithm to keep people apart. He said the apparent rise in passengers being split up was due to more people buying reserved seating since the option was introduced two years ago.

"We don't go in and change the algorithm. It changes due to demand and because the number of reserved seats has changed.

"You are now increasingly more likely to be split up if you select a random seat, because that's what random means."

He said customers could choose to book a random reserved seat for free or select a seat for €2 or €4.

"It's a very simple policy. It's your choice. If you've made the choice, stop whinging after it's made," he said.

Mr O'Leary denied the airline ever attempted to accommodate passengers who booked together with neighbouring seats.

He said more than 50pc of passengers were now choosing to pay for a reserved seat, which has led to other passengers being split up.

"We have more than 65 million people who chose to pay for the seat," he said.

"The only way to guarantee sitting together is to buy a reserved seat from a cost of €2," he added.

Mr O'Leary added that the company had reduced their average fares by 8pc this year.

Is it really a big problem if you are travelling without children to be seperated for under 3 hours on a flight. If you really need to sit and hold each others hands pay for your seats together. The flights are so cheap and you do have a choice. You could even use another more expensive airline. As things are at the moment i would rather use Ryanair than our very own unreliable BA.

What people seem to forget is Mick is running a business not a charity.

at least Ryanair's fleet is mostly recent - a friend recently flew Murcia/Leeds with Jet2, and found that the aircraft was 28years 8 months old! A bit like Trigger's broom it had no doubt had six new handles and five new heads but I would not try to drive that journey in a near-30 year old car.....

Ryanair, you get what you pay for. I use them monthly no problems whatsoever. It's the numpties that don't read the terms and conditions that whinge. If you want a specific seat or to sit with family or friends, book and pay for it...simples!

Ryanair's fleet is mostly recent - a friend recently flew Murcia/Leeds with Jet2, and found that the aircraft was 28years 8 months old!

28 years is not necessarily old, life is judged on flying hours and landings (cycles)

The two are not comparable, totally different business models. Jet2 initially set up with bought, therefore owned, second hand aircraft. As they own these they are running them to the end of their life. There are some leased aircraft sneaking in to their model now however.

Ryanair is completely different, they own practically nothing, everything is leased or bought in. The aircraft are leased, run until their first major check, and returned to the lessor, to be replaced by new ones. This keeps their maintenance costs to a predictable minimum.Their airport staff which many complain about, myself included, are actually their handling agent staff, usually in Ryanair uniform.To paraphrase Forrest Gump "Cheap is as cheap does" you get what you pay for and 99.9% of the time it works.

Lyric wrote:The two are not comparable, totally different business models. Jet2 initially set up with bought, therefore owned, second hand aircraft. As they own these they are running them to the end of their life.

Well i hope they don’t come to the end of there life at 33000 feet. I would rather be on one of O’learys new leased planes than a 28 year old bought and paid for model.